MPs: UK government industrial strategy 'not long-term'

The government's industrial strategy shows little evidence of a long-term approach, say MPs.They called the plans a continuation of existing policies rather than the step change that's needed. The Prime Minister highlighted the strategy as part of her plan to create an economy that works for ...

....Balfour Beatty is turning into an impressive turnaround story. After issuing six profits warnings between 2012 and 2015, the construction firm is showing that even supposedly toxic problems can be washed out of the system with the help of time and common sense. ...

....Around the same time, banks were loosening their lending criteria, offering multiple jumbo-sized loans, sometimes with little verification of the borrowers, and interest-only deals to keep repayments cheap. Add to the mix a reduction in social housing, low levels of private home construction, a loss of confidence in personal pensions, low interest rates and the huge increase in net inward migration after 1997, and you get near-perfect conditions for an explosion in the private rented sector. ...

....Time magazine has been laughed at on Twitter for suggesting that the phrase “hold my avocado” is the new viral millennial catchphrase. The magazine said the sentence was so powerful because it “takes advantage of the ‘hold my beer’ dialogue construction that’s become an internet joke to represent how politicians, brands, or other entities play a race-to-the-bottom game of putting their feet in their mouths”. ...

....McCaskill’s disclosure of the audit’s key findings is a rare glimpse into the opaque world of battlefield contracting. Contractors are indispensable in Afghanistan, handling security, transportation, construction and more. ...